Future Impact now available!! WAS: deep impact reissue!!! interested?

[Darko74]

Hi, i was listening to the demo of version 4.5 below. I noticed that when the bassist is playing Take on me he's playing B on the E string. When i use the same sound and play it in the same position its playing an Octave below what hes playing. Is there a way to fix this? Its around 5:11 for reference Thanks

 

[Quatschmacher]

Hi, i was listening to the demo of version 4.5 below. I noticed that when the bassist is playing Take on me he's playing B on the E string. When i use the same sound and play it in the same position its playing an Octave below what hes playing. Is there a way to fix this? Its around 5:11 for reference Thanks

Reprogram it via the editor and rewrite to the pedal. Or wait for the next update which will have MIDI octave switching.

 

[Darko74]

Reprogram it via the editor and rewrite to the pedal. Or wait for the next update which will have MIDI octave switching.

Ok, Thanks

 

[tombowlus]

Reprogram it via the editor and rewrite to the pedal. Or wait for the next update which will have MIDI octave switching.

Oooh, very nice!

 

[Luke the Fluke]

Oooh, very nice!

what he said!

 

[Chizzops]

I programmed a switch on my Morningstar to raise two octaves on press and revert on release. A lot of the bass sounds are great lead sounds when you do that! How will this new feature to change midi octaves differ from what we can already do?

 

[Quatschmacher]

I programmed a switch on my Morningstar to raise two octaves on press and revert on release. A lot of the bass sounds are great lead sounds when you do that! How will this new feature to change midi octaves differ from what we can already do?

It’ll just make the MIDI CCs for octave transpose that already exist in the VA engine available in the FM engine too.

 

[Luke the Fluke]

Today I was playing at church,
now most of you are in the USA and church music is it's own genre, and depending on the church it can be quite high end in terms of musicianship and performance. Here in the UK it can be like that but a lot of churches are a bit smaller, and less polished - we've got a small amount of musicians and this morning we actually had both bass, drums (well cajon) and keys and acousitic - a big band for us...
I run compressor> Future impact > HX stomp (amp/cab sim) > colourbox

Managed to use FM double bass patch 2.5 - I've found some of the FM patches are a bit fussy or don't track well - this one tracks great and was really enjoyable, I found myself playing lines differently to fit the sound.
Also on the last song I used VA patch 05 (Army of me) for long synthy sounds notes held over a bar or two in the verses.

In both cases it was super easy to use, this is the biggest compliment I can give this thing - it doesn't take up headspace to play - when I had the C4 I was playing ahead to make up for the latency and it felt like I was playing through a something and would have to think about it, or plug it into something to tweak the output volume or something - with the FI it just feels like playing something else that sounds different.
And it sounds good.

 

[bassbrad]

I found myself playing lines differently to fit the sound.

For me this is a big reason I use synth & effects so much as it pushes me out of my usual playing styles into a different space. I do it rather randomly in not always using the same effects on a particular somg, this both confuses and astounds my bandmates because like me they are never sure what is gonna happen. After all it's something called "jazz".

 

[sunbeast]

For me this is a big reason I use synth & effects so much as it pushes me out of my usual playing styles into a different space. I do it rather randomly in not always using the same effects on a particular somg, this both confuses and astounds my bandmates because like me they are never sure what is gonna happen. After all it's something called "jazz".

Same! I’m personally rarely trying to match any actual recorded synth sounds when I use a pedal like this, I just like to be pushed creatively and find new tricks that a bass can do. I haven’t really brought mine into a fixed band environment yet, but the current Future Impact might finally make it given its relative tightness (I’ve messed with the last update between songs at a few rehearsals and my bandmates are always like “oh what’s that?!!”- the current update I might try to play during a song and see where that goes). It’ll probably never feel as natural as my trusty OC-2, but the sounds on tap are probably worth the trade-off

 

[Andras Szalay]

Future Impact is No. 4 on NO TREBLE's Top 10:

Geddy Lee’s New Bass, Kiyoshi Kitagawa Tribute Lead This Week’s Top 10

Geddy Lee’s custom Rickenbacker, a tribute to Kiyoshi Kitagawa, boutique bass reviews, and new gear highlights lead this week’s Top 10 on No Treble.

www.notreble.com

 

[Randy Ward]

Future Impact is No. 4 on NO TREBLE's Top 10:

I wish they would have gone a little more in-depth but that's good They are getting the word out. IMHO I think if people realized what the update really is it would be the biggest news in the base world!

 

[smeet]

I can't believe I don't know this, but apparently I'm doing something wrong. If I double-click a program in the Manager, it goes to the edit buffer, and I can switch to the editor and edit the parameters, while auditioning the current parameters with my bass plugged into the pedal. But how do I send the edited sound from the edit buffer back to the same program tile in the bank so when I save the bank my edits get saved?

 

[Quatschmacher]

I can't believe I don't know this, but apparently I'm doing something wrong. If I double-click a program in the Manager, it goes to the edit buffer, and I can switch to the editor and edit the parameters, while auditioning the current parameters with my bass plugged into the pedal. But how do I send the edited sound from the edit buffer back to the same program tile in the bank so when I save the bank my edits get saved?

If recall correctly, switching back to the manager view either resets the changes, or at least doesn’t overwrite the cache file for that preset.

I have previously suggested it might be more intuitive for the cache file to be overwritten at the point of switching back to the manager view in the case that edits have been made. There’d need to be some visual indication made to the currently selected tile to show it differed from the stored value. (@Andras Szalay if I haven’t already, I’ll suggest an implementation to the team that could solve this.)

For now, once you’ve edited the patch in the editor view, there are a few ways:

Option 1:
Press “save”, store the file on your computer (keeping the same number prefix in the file name). Choose a folder location and save. Then press “write one” and choose the file from where you stored it.

Option 2:
Press “save”, store the file on your computer (but delete number prefix in the file name). Choose a folder location and save. Now switch to the manager view, erase the tile with the original sound. Locate the edited file in the left-hand pane and drop it into the blank file. Select the tile and then press “upload to FI” and allow it to so write only the selected tile.

Option 3:
Press “save”, store the file on your computer (keeping the same number prefix in the file name). Do not navigate to a new folder, but instead save the file directly in the cache folder which is shown by default. Now switch back to the manager view. Select the tile (if it isn’t already highlighted) and press “upload to FI”. Choose the option to write only the selected tile when prompted.

 

[smeet]

If recall correctly, switching back to the manager view either resets the changes, or at least doesn’t overwrite the cache file for that preset.

I have previously suggested it might be more intuitive for the cache file to be overwritten at the point of switching back to the manager view in the case that edits have been made. There’d need to be some visual indication made to the currently selected tile to show it differed from the stored value. (@Andras Szalay if I haven’t already, I’ll suggest an implementation to the team that could solve this.)

For now, once you’ve edited the patch in the editor view, there are a few ways:

Option 1:
Press “save”, store the file on your computer (keeping the same number prefix in the file name). Choose a folder location and save. Then press “write one” and choose the file from where you stored it.

Option 2:
Press “save”, store the file on your computer (but delete number prefix in the file name). Choose a folder location and save. Now switch to the manager view, erase the tile with the original sound. Locate the edited file in the left-hand pane and drop it into the blank file. Select the tile and then press “upload to FI” and allow it to so write only the selected tile.

Option 3:
Press “save”, store the file on your computer (keeping the same number prefix in the file name). Do not navigate to a new folder, but instead save the file directly in the cache folder which is shown by default. Now switch back to the manager view. Select the tile (if it isn’t already highlighted) and press “upload to FI”. Choose the option to write only the selected tile when prompted.

Ah, thanks! I thought I was missing something obvious. For me, the workflow of going back and forth between manager and editor (and preserving the changes) is super important.

I also think I was misunderstanding the manager view. I thought the patch parameters for all the tiles were loaded into memory, but from your answer, it seems that each tile just points at the file, is that correct?

I like your suggestion to overwrite the cache when switching back to the manager and highlighting that it was edited. If that was done, then how would we write the cached changes back to the source (or another) tile’s file?

 

[Quatschmacher]

Ah, thanks! I thought I was missing something obvious. For me, the workflow of going back and forth between manager and editor (and preserving the changes) is super important.

I also think I was misunderstanding the manager view. I thought the patch parameters for all the tiles were loaded into memory, but from your answer, it seems that each tile just points at the file, is that correct?

I like your suggestion to overwrite the cache when switching back to the manager and highlighting that it was edited. If that was done, then how would we write the cached changes back to the source (or another) tile’s file?

Each tile points at a corresponding file in the cache folder which is populated when you press “download from FI”.

When you double-click a tile, it loads the corresponding cache file into the editor and the pedal’s edit buffer.

If my suggestion is implemented, you’d simply switch back to the manager and click “upload to FI” to write the changes.

 

[Quatschmacher]

Ah, thanks! I thought I was missing something obvious. For me, the workflow of going back and forth between manager and editor (and preserving the changes) is super important.

I also think I was misunderstanding the manager view. I thought the patch parameters for all the tiles were loaded into memory, but from your answer, it seems that each tile just points at the file, is that correct?

I like your suggestion to overwrite the cache when switching back to the manager and highlighting that it was edited. If that was done, then how would we write the cached changes back to the source (or another) tile’s file?

I have now typed up the suggestion and emailed it to the rest of the team.

 

[Andras Szalay]

V4.51 Firmware

We hereby announce the release of the V4.51 firmware for the Future Impact V4 and V4 VIP.
Released just a few weeks ago, the V4.5 firmware was probably the most important upgrade in the Future Impact’s ten-year history, with the FM synth engine, zero-latency tracking and the Setlist being the most significant new features. You may be wondering why we are releasing a firmware update so soon after the previous one; there are several reasons for this:
As is the case in all major firmware upgrades of such complexity, some minor bugs can go undetected in the beta testing phase. Those that were discovered after the V4.5 release have now been fixed.
Due to lack of available processor memory in V4.5, it was regrettably not possible to implement some important MIDI functions in FM mode, despite the fact that users rightly expected these should work across both synth engines. Thankfully, in the intervening time, an AI-assisted analysis of the firmware has enabled further memory optimization, with the result that the most important MIDI functions were able to be implemented.
Via user feedback we learned that you wanted a much quicker and easier way to switch between VA and FM modes; we heard you and have now implemented that.
We have also updated the Editor: the pedal firmware update process has been improved such that it will guide you through each step with clear prompts and will allow you to back up your sounds, setlists and Global Menu settings.
New customers’ devices will be delivered with the V4.51 firmware installed. Current V4 owners running V4.12 or V4.5 firmware are encouraged to install the free upgrade. Download it from www.panda-audio.com. We hope you enjoy the new firmware!

Furthermore, in order to streamline the flow of information about the Future Impact and other Panda-Audio products, the webpage www.pandamidi.com will be shut down: from May 10th, all information will be available exclusively at www.panda-audio.com.

Andras Szalay

 

[golem]

V4.51 Firmware

We hereby announce the release of the V4.51 firmware for the Future Impact V4 and V4 VIP.
Released just a few weeks ago, the V4.5 firmware was probably the most important upgrade in the Future Impact’s ten-year history, with the FM synth engine, zero-latency tracking and the Setlist being the most significant new features. You may be wondering why we are releasing a firmware update so soon after the previous one; there are several reasons for this:
As is the case in all major firmware upgrades of such complexity, some minor bugs can go undetected in the beta testing phase. Those that were discovered after the V4.5 release have now been fixed.
Due to lack of available processor memory in V4.5, it was regrettably not possible to implement some important MIDI functions in FM mode, despite the fact that users rightly expected these should work across both synth engines. Thankfully, in the intervening time, an AI-assisted analysis of the firmware has enabled further memory optimization, with the result that the most important MIDI functions were able to be implemented.
Via user feedback we learned that you wanted a much quicker and easier way to switch between VA and FM modes; we heard you and have now implemented that.
We have also updated the Editor: the pedal firmware update process has been improved such that it will guide you through each step with clear prompts and will allow you to back up your sounds, setlists and Global Menu settings.
New customers’ devices will be delivered with the V4.51 firmware installed. Current V4 owners running V4.12 or V4.5 firmware are encouraged to install the free upgrade. Download it from www.panda-audio.com. We hope you enjoy the new firmware!

Furthermore, in order to streamline the flow of information about the Future Impact and other Panda-Audio products, the webpage www.pandamidi.com will be shut down: from May 10th, all information will be available exclusively at www.panda-audio.com.

Andras Szalay

Thank you so much...

I can confirm my mentioned bugs are fixed

Set-list now works as assumed switching between FM and VA in all off or on and is 1-50 VA and 50-99 FM.
FIeditor keyboard no longer triggers strange things

 

[Andras Szalay]

Mohini Dey gave a wonderful concert tonight in Budapest. As I heard that she was coming, I asked her if I could help her with anything. She said, although she has all Future Impact versions, her V1 was damaged during the last tour, and she would appreciate it very much if I could bring her a new one. I looked around, and I had only one V1 left that was on my pedal board during the last ten years on concerts with my group, Panta Rhei. I took it off, and gave it to her as a special gift after the show…​

I am very curious to hear her new album which appears soon; she said she used very heavily the Future Impact on the album.​